The one positive outcome of the ridiculously lenient sentence Manafort received yesterday is that it should forever end any fucking debate about whether or not our justice system is racist as fuck:

Judge Ellis is quite a piece of work. In 2009, when Democratic congressman William Jefferson of Louisiana famously got caught with 90-grand in cold, ill-gotten cash in his home freezer, Ellis threw the book at him, sentencing Jefferson to 13 years, the longest bid ever doled out to a congressman in a bribery case. Jefferson, it should be noted, was black.

It is. And it’s not just racist judges, because mandatory minimums tie the hands of fair judges. The end.

I know people are focused on the racism and the unequal justice angle, but I’m with Nichols, that what struck me the most was that utterly ignorant and tone-deaf “blameless.” Some of us have known of Manafort for many years, long, long before he appeared in the Trump orbit, and the guy has spent the last 40 years at the beck and call of some of the worst dictators of the 20th and 21st centuries. I have called him on these pages, more than once, a blood-soaked mercenary – for that is what he has spent his adult life being. A completely amoral and soulless being who *never* hesitated to make a buck off the misfortune of others, and who is as responsible for the deaths of the Maidan protesters as Yanukovych or the police who fired their weapons. I do wish to see him die impoverished and imprisoned, and can only hope that we will still be able to see that outcome.

I know, I get it. Even if Judge Amy imposes the max she can and says “consecutive not concurrent, beeyotch,” that still doesn’t take away the fact that the Ellis sentencing yesterday was a fearful miscarriage of justice.

The blameless shit IS part of the racism. Think of all the people of color in prison for long sentences for having drugs. Many have never done anything worse than carry some pot in their pasts. No one calls them blameless. No one gives dead young unarmed black men doing nothing illegal who are killed by cops the label blameless. Children brought to this country by their parents aren’t being treated as blameless. It’s all a part of it.

Shit, we have an entire task force devoted to seeing if prospective Americans lied on their applications so they can be tossed out of the country entirely, but if a white wealthy Republican lies to the FBI, he’s blameless and thus worthy of reuced sentence. Greatness Reborn!

@The Midnight Lurker:
I picture it like an infestation of insects. They’re always been around, but their numbers were manageable. Then the environment changes to encourage faster multiplying, and now their numbers and the damage are way out of control. It takes a long time, and a constant fight against every stage of their growth (eggs, larvae, adults, and breeding rate as influenced by environment).

John Kelly Unloads: Working for Trump Was Awful, and His Wall Is Stupid

Tell us you weren’t the one implementing racist policies at DHS and sincerely apologize to Frederica Wilson for your lies and smears, Kelly, and you might begin to be on the road to redeeming your reputation.

Same here. The only thing that stops me from screaming, besides scaring my dog, is the fear that I might not be able to stop.

On the same day that Ellis delivered that insulting farce of a sentence, I helped my mom do her taxes. She’s in her 80s and itemizes because she spends so much Fucking money on medical expenses. Well she lost the personal exemption and the tax for her jumped from $250 last year to $750 this year. Her gross is only $23,000. People who had adjusted gross income under $10,000 got fucked with the tax scam. She also found out that the refraction tests she needs four times a year for her eye disease are no longer covered by Medicare. And that motherfucker Manafort got away with stealing and laundering hundreds of millions of dollars.

I’m ready to bring out the fucking guillotines. This abuse has to stop.

There’s a quote in the story about Ellis.
Told by Lamar White, Jr. ‏@LamarWhiteJr

Judge Ellis is the same guy who Lamar White, Jr. @LamarWhiteJr
sentenced U.S. Rep. Bill Jefferson to thirteen years in prison for corruption.

What’s the difference between Manafort and Jefferson? Hmmmm…. gee, I wonder.

The sentence handed down in Jefferson’s case was the longest ever given to a member of Congress.

Jefferson is best known for keeping $90K in cash in his freezer. Ironically, that charge didn’t stick. He was convicted of related crimes, and ironically, the Supreme Court’s decision in McDonnell v. United States ensured he ultimately got out… after eight years.

Before sentencing him to 13 years:

“Judge T.S. Ellis III told Jefferson that he has ‘led an extraordinary life and has accomplished a great deal.’ But he added: ‘It makes this event all the sadder for me and many people.'”

@lamh36: I’ll skim the article later, but IIRC it was just about a year ago that Lindsey Graham convinced trump to accept a bipartisan compromise on immigration that included money for border improvements that he could call a wall. He was all excited about signing something Obama never did and getting a photo op, etc (Let’s leave aside for the moment that the then Speaker almost certainly would not have brought said compromise to the House floor). All the reporting at the time said it was Kelly and that dead-eyed cretin Miller (Stephen?) who got The Beast all riled up the point he was rambling about shithole countries and blew the whole thing up. And what others have said about Frederica Wilson (and let’s not forget, from that same rant, the Khan family sacrificing their Gold Star status, per the self appointed High Priest), Rob Porter (“women used to be held sacred in this country”), etc.
So yeah, fuck John Kelly. I’m always ambivalent about Lawrence O’Donnell, but damn he had Kelly’s number right off and his seething contempt for the Boston Irish bully he recognized was a thing of beauty.

This is a country with a justice system where a perennial tax cheat, money launderer, serial adulterer, scamming con man and a child rapist did all these crimes right in the public eye for decades and still got feted & elected to the topmost post just because he was white. So, not a surprise at all that yet another corrupt judge got yet another white criminal off the hook.

Ellis does know how to coin a phrase. “An otherwise blameless life” is even better than “with notable exception.”
Ellis must think Manafort was the second coming of JFC. He’s an idiot that should be kicked out on his rascist ass.

I know people are focused on the racism and the unequal justice angle, but I’m with Nichols, that what struck me the most was that utterly ignorant and tone-deaf “blameless.”

Honestly, I think this is the core part of the sentencing. Giving aid and support to dictators around the world just isn’t a big deal in Judge Ellis’s book. As long as he was just providing PR cover and election advice, rather than pulling the trigger or giving orders to shoot, he was just trying to earn a buck.

Jonahan Martin @ jmartNYT
Loudest and most sustained ovation of night – followed by a BERNIE, BERNIE chant – after he says that no matter the negative ads and attempts to stop him he will pass Medicare for All

@ mattyglesia Retweeted Jonathan Martin
… how?

and Yglesias is actually Bernie-curious. The replies to MY are equal parts snark and sincere “Because he’s Bernie!” comments, but no one mentions “Look out the window, Mitch”. Once again, I’m tempted to sign up for that infernal swamp
and then there’s this one, which could just as easily be snarky as sincere

New York state regulators have subpoenaed documents from the Trump Organization’s insurance broker, following testimony from President Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen that Trump exaggerated his wealth to insurance companies.

A spokeswoman for Aon PLC, Trump’s London-based broker, confirmed Tuesday that her company had received a subpoena from New York’s Department of Financial Services. …

2. This week, the House Judiciary Committee dropped a bombshell on Trump World when it requested info from 81 players like Trump’s campaign, the Trump Org, his sons, his son-in-law, etc.

Hard to believe but one name should be added to the list. America: Meet Pamela J. Newman

3. Pamela Newman is little known outside of the insurance world – where she’s a star. She rose through the ranks to become an executive veep at one of the world’s biggest firms, Aon.

She also had a superstar client: Donald J. Trump.

4. In the mid-2000s, Trump did a very dumb thing (shocking, huh?). He was infuriated over a book by @TimOBrien alleged Trump’s net worth was much, much lower than Trump claimed — so he sued. Which allowed O’Brien’s lawyers to conduct discovery.

5. This included a rare chance to review some of Trump’s financial records, where the lawyers learned that in 2005, Trump had received $18.3 million from an insurance carrier, brokered by Aon Plc. The money was for damage to Mar-a-Lago and other Florida properties,

6. O’Brien’s lawyers deposed Trump in 2007. He admitted that not all of the money had been plowed back into Mar-a-Lago, even though he insisted “the hurricane really did tremendous damage.”
… …
12, The only relevant permits, according to the AP, were for $3,000 (!) in repairs to outdoor lights and for vacuuming sand from a swimming pool. Officials like town planners and historians who were there for the storm were shocked to learn of Trump’s claim.

13, The AP tracked down the insurance adjuster, Hank Stein of VeriClaim, who struggled to remember any details but did believe there was some water damage from observation windows that blew open.

14. All of this raises questions about Aon Plc. and their role in this. The AP actually failed to learn the identity of the insurer whose name is on the check, but Trump said in the deposition the lead broker involved in obtaining the payment was Aon’s Pamela Newman.
… …
17. Newman was the absolute FIRST person, ever, to donate to Trump’s presidential campaign. Her check for $2,700 — the maximum — arrived 2 weeks BEFORE Trump came down the escalator and announced he was running

18. Newman also hosted a fundraiser for Trump, according to Bloomberg News, and she later gave a whopping $25,000 to the Make America Great Again PAC. …

19. One more thing about Trump and AON — his presidential campaign spent more than $300,000 on insurance with the company
…
23. But why didn’t Florida authorities follow up on the AP’s report in 2016? The attorney general at the time was Pam Biondi, who famously received a $25,000 donation from Trump and failed to investigate multiple claims about Trump University

Question for B-J voodoo/hoodoo/santeria practitioners: this morning I found the body of an adult rabbit in my front yard, minus the head. Did someone put a hex on us? If so, what kind?

Question for B-J mafia: is it possible that an underachieving mobster was trying to intimidate one of my neighbors and left a rabbit head in their bed and simply discarded the body in my yard (note: dumping an animal body in a neighbor’s yard totally violates the HOA regs, so I will need to file a complaint if this is what happened)?

Question for B-J Louisiana/Arkansas/Mississippi/Alabama residents or natives: when I went to my mailbox this evening, the headless rabbit was gone. Is it likely that one of my neighbors is making stew tonight (grilling is unlikely as it’s been raining a bit)?

Question for B-J legal eagles: if one of my neighbors took the headless rabbit from my yard and cooked it, am I entitled to a portion of the food? Or “vittles” might be the more appropriate term.

I guess this is kind of a victory. It’s not like CNN wasn’t gonna hire someone of her ilk to shill for The Beast

@ samstein
Sam Stein Retweeted Sarah Isgur
No longer an editor —>
Sarah Isgur @ whignewtons
It’s been a great vacation but I am back on twitter! And news: I will go to CNN as a Political Analyst instead. Will start next month on air and on line. See y’all soon!

MSNBC seems to have mostly given up on the temptation to attempt Fox-Lite (we’ll see how the next two years go…. bleach), but Zucker can’t seem to let go of the dream

This guy. Bernie Bros can’t count to 60. Sanders has no excuse, he works with these Republicans – he knows he won’t have the votes to pass M4A though the Senate!

Under President Obama, Congress passed sweeping BFD health care reform in March 2010 (we’re nearing the 9th anniversary of the ACA’s passage). Good luck getting Medicare for All through the Senate by 2022, Bernie //

Some hawks and large owls decapitate their prey, before flying off to a safe perch to consume it. Often, with larger prey, in an urban or treed environment, the larger mass of some prey and the difficult conditions of taking off from a ground start, causes them to drop the prey.

Sometimes, if they can do a safe “swoop” they will come back for the prey.

Often, other predators both domestic and wild, will retrieve the lost prey.

@Mary G: Sen. Flowers us how I feel about Judge Ellis’ decorum. Manafort was so deferential to the fine judge. Manafort enabled so many muderous dictators he deserves a special prize. Juanita Jean endorses trash possum cellmates and 24/7 accordians. I’d like solitary with 24/7 tapes of Manafort’s clients speeches and music of their victims’ loved ones choice. Then again Sen. Flowers’ rant on endless repeat might suffice.

@Jim, Foolish Literalist: You know, in 2012 Bernie was interviewed saying he thought ‘we’ should primary Pres Obama ‘to keep him from going all the way to the right.’

Since then I’ve thought that’s how he sees his role (in history!). Plans to enact policies are not so much his concern. His purpose (and what he tries to take sole credit for, which is a lie) is only to move the D party to the left. Damage to candidates and party … pshaw.

@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: Harris had to backpedal from her call to abolish private insurance, I think Booker and Warren have gotten very vague on M4A (which they should have done from the start, Klobuchar’s flat out against it. I don’t know if anyone has stayed awake long enough to ask Hickenlooper, but I doubt he ‘s on board. But he’s convinced himself and his cultists that the only thing standing in the way of single payer is…. I don’t know. Hillary? Obama?

@Steve in the ATL: NAL but as a citizen:
Question 4: Leave those neighbors alone.
3. Don’t eat their ‘stew.’

A weasel will kill at the animal’s head (may drink some blood?) and leave the body. Then come back to bury it for later. They make such a waste in a chicken coop because they leave everyone slaughtered instead of taking one to eat at a time. If there’s any chance you have fishers in your area, keep your cat in and warn the neighbors. Say no to the stew though.

@ Steve in the ATL @Aleta: I don’t think there are fishers (the weasley kind) in GA though. Also depends on when you saw it first. Hawks like red-tailed ones hunt in the day, owls at night, weasels at night I think.

Some predators have a “conversation of death” with their prey. Body language and other “signalling”. It is theorized that this is why predators often slaughter some domestic animals far beyond what is needed, but do not with wild animals, even in confinement. It is also theorized that this is why with a guard animal, dogs, lamas, donkeys, ducks, geese, you might lose one of the flock or herd to predation, but never the whole flock or herd.

Around here we have mink, martins, least weasels, black footed ferrets and fishers. People who raise chickens either have weasel proof enclosures, mixed flocks, ( chickens, geese, ducks) or other guard animals.

Up here, an Insurance Broker sells Insurance. They represent the Insurance Companies, ( underwriters), can also be an Insurance Company. Depending on the arrangements with the Insurance Company, they may or may not be involved in the claims process. Most large Insurance Companies manage their own Claims process and valuation.

I am very glad that this week ended with an incredible outbreak of hilarious low comedy, courtesy of our friends at the Miami Herald. You may recall that Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots, recently was busted for allegedly engaging in what Myles would have called “nasty gymnastiness” at a strip-mall massage parlor in Florida. The establishment in question, which is now being investigated for human-trafficking among other crimes, was founded by a woman named Li Yang. And, as the Herald reports, Li Yang ran in the highest circles of the MAGA-thon. And, glory be, there’s art.

Sometime during the party at Trump’s West Palm Beach country club, the president turned in his chair to look over his right shoulder, smiling for a photo with two women at a table behind him. The woman who snapped the blurry Super Bowl selfie with the president was Li Yang, 45, a self-made entrepreneur from China who started a chain of Asian day spas in South Florida. Over the years, these establishments — many of which operate under the name Tokyo Day Spas — have gained a reputation for offering sexual services. Nineteen days after Trump and Yang posed together while rooting for the Patriots, authorities would charge Kraft with soliciting prostitution at a spa in Jupiter that Yang had founded more than a decade earlier.

There’s a lot of art.

Before the 2016 general election, Yang offered no evidence of political engagement. She hadn’t voted in 10 years, records showed. But she has now become a fixture at Republican political events up and down the East Coast. Her Facebook is covered in photos of herself standing with President Trump, his two sons, Eric and Donald Jr., Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Rick Scott, Sarah Palin, the president’s campaign manager and an assortment of other high-level Republican operators she has met at charity events, political fundraisers and galas, many of which require hefty donations to attend. She sometimes carries a rhinestone encrusted MAGA clutch purse.

Yup, that’s the difference. We have a family bible with four generations’ worth of family handwriting listing births, marriages, and deaths. Names and dates. That is normal and respectful.

What isn’t normal or respectful is Trump (or anyone, really) taking his golden Sharpie and scrawling his autograph on the leatherette covers like a common rock star. This is really mean of me, but I’ll bet 3/4 of those folks are already putting their autotrumped scripture up for auction on eBay. The rest are thinking “priceless family heirloom.”

@Jay: Here we also have long tail weasels, said to need to eat almost constantly, to kill a lot at one time (cleaning out nests of rats/mice/chipmunks/birds) and to bury a lot of food near their nest for later.

@Steve in the ATL:
Yeah, Great Horned Owls in particular are fond of brains.
Crows hate ’em in part because (well, evolved hatred and some culture, though it is not well studied AFAIK) they eat the brains of roosting crows. You have nightmares, crows have to worry about genuine brain-eating night terrors.

The ones I knew were quite sweet. There were only six of them: Alice, Bossy, Flower were some of them. One of them had a sweet little boy-calf one year. His name was Skeezix. He was adorable and delicious.

Based on my non-BJ-reading acquaintances and friends, the phrase “otherwise blameless life” has penetrated the NPR-CNN-whatever bubble. Everybody has been quoting it to me all day long with disgusted expressions.

“said to”. All the members of the weasel family have highly efficient metabolisms. They freak a lot of people out however, and have for a very long time, so there’s a lot of myths and slanders out there about them. They actually kill a lot less than urban cats.

For example, if a Least Weasel kills 2 voles in a day, that’s a great hunting day. It will eat everything but the head on one, and stash the rest near the nest, for the next day.

A momma Least Weasel will need 2-4 voles a day to feed her brood of up to 8. My best Least Weasel storie is:

Sitting on the front steps one summer morning, and realizing that a Momma Least Weasel had stashed her kits under the Compost cart for safety while she was out hunting. With in 15 minutes they had grown accustomed to me and stopped squeaking and sticking their heads out, to coming out, wrestling and chasing each other. They figured out there was another Compost Cart on the other side of the stairs, and took turns racing from the shelter of one, to the other, across my feet. Then they decided that the space between my right foot and left foot was the perfect place to wrestle, because they could hide behind one foot, periscoping to see if a sibling was coming, ( ambush), then use my foot as a “King of the Castle” leap position. After about 40 minutes of this, they got tired, retreated back under the Compost Cart for a nap, and I went back inside with my mug of cold coffee.

Yup. I don’t eat veal now, haven’t for years, but I learned at an early age about the source of the food we eat.

Best meal I ever had on that Michigan farm, though, was a horrid, mean old rooster who was as big as I was and orders of magnitude more self-confident. He would fly at me and peck at me every time I went to gather eggs in the henhouse. I hated that feathered fucker as much as I’ve ever hated any living creature until November 8, 2016.

Anyhow, for whatever reason, the farmer and his wife decided it was time to despatch him. I watched with glee as the farmer chopped the rooster’s head off (bloodthirsty little bitch that I was!) I watched in awe as the headless rooster ran around the slaughter yard for several minutes. And once he stopped moving, it was I who picked him up by the feet and dipped him repeatedly in a pail of boiling hot water to loosen the pin feathers.

Nothing went to waste. Bones, visceral organs and feet were boiled into a stock for later use. But that night we had chicken and dumplings. He was a tough old bird, and probably not all that tasty, but I was so glad he was dead I ate every bite. I’ve never enjoyed a chicken dinner more. Seventy or so years ago

@SiubhanDuinne: He was a tough old bird, and probably not all that tasty,

Your story made me laugh and reminded me both of a scene from Lonesome Dove (I guess that’ll teach him to peck me!) and this moment from the old Two Fat Ladies cooking show where they explain the origins of coq au vin, which I remembered as going on a bit longer.